The Warmth of Winter
by Vargras
Summary: In the biting cold, in a sleepy inn, in a drafty room, Naofumi Iwatani takes the first step in conquering his most terrible foe — himself. And he's not doing it alone.


Winters in Melromarc certainly weren't any easier than they were in Japan, that was for sure. Still, this wasn't _terrible_ — they had all ended up in a rather cozy inn, in the middle of nowhere, which was all the better because it meant maybe, _just maybe, _he wouldn't be immediately recognizable.

It had worked thus far, at least. No one had come up to him or anyone else in his party, bothering them with some other request for aid. Though it paid well, he was admittedly getting rather tired of cleaning up after the other heroes, who were somehow still alive despite their own inept bumbling.

_Ren seems to be getting a bit better, but Itsuki and Motoyasu? Hopeless._

That was a problem for another time, however. His current issue was simply… sleeplessness, something that had plagued him since that first accusation thrown at him by that _bitch,_ Myne. Getting any amount of rest after that had been difficult, especially when one had to start sleeping with one eye open lest they get stabbed in the back _yet again_ — metaphorically speaking, of course. It hadn't _literally_ happened, but… he wouldn't have been terribly surprised if it eventually did.

All of this meant that he had instead busied himself with simply sitting in front of the fireplace within their room, tending to the small blaze within it. Something about the soft and steady crackling of the wood was probably the closest he'd get to finding true white noise in this world, besides the obvious answer of 'rain'. Some of his best nights of rest _had_ been beside a campfire, so perhaps there was something to it after all. With poker in hand, he idly prodded at some of the logs, not even bothering to pay much attention to the creaking floorboards behind him.

A few more gentle footsteps, and someone took a place beside him. "Can't sleep?"

"No, it's—" He paused, grimacing somewhat, before shaking his head. "...sure, something like that. What are you doing up?"

"I know you tend to stay up late, but I didn't hear you go to bed yet, and… it's almost morning. Filo will be up soon."

Naofumi cocked his head a bit, glancing upwards at his companion. "She knows well enough that she can just make her way to the kitchen and get food on her own. She doesn't need me for that, so I _know_ you're only up for my sake and not hers."

"W-Well…"

"Go ahead and sit, Raphtalia. You've got that look in your eyes anyways."

Rather than immediately take a seat beside him though, she instead threw a blanket over his shoulders, only sitting down afterwards. "I know you're in front of the fire, but it's drafty in here. We can't have you catching a cold."

He sighed, withdrawing the poker and setting it aside. _This girl, I swear…_

Raphtalia quickly squeaked in surprise as an arm made its way around her waist, pulling her close and drawing the blanket over her as well. "N-Naofumi?!"

_Still not used to her just calling me purely by name. _"That goes both ways, Raphtalia. We can't have you getting sick either."

"I-I know, but..." Though she had always made every attempt to downplay her emotions as best she could, she was constantly betrayed by her very own tail, which was now audibly _swishing_ beneath the blanket. "I just… wasn't…"

"Wasn't expecting me to do this, after all my talks of how 'cold' I am?" He chuckled dryly, leaning forward somewhat, yet still keeping an arm firmly at her side. "I thought this was what you always wanted?"

Another faint squeak from her as a blush worked its way onto her features, her tail seemingly swinging faster and faster. "N-N-Naofumi, that's… what I meant was, um… I…"

"Raphtalia, we've been through this long enough by now, side by side through whatever the hell the world throws at us, and I just wanted to say…" He began to grin. "You're not a very good liar."

That drew a curious look from her as she peered up at him, ears twitching somewhat. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means…" _Dammit, how do I want to word this? _"...that I've, erm… kind of always known. About you and your… _feelings_ for me. It was obvious enough through the body language, not to mention the looks you gave me now and then."

"T-That's not… it's not what it…" Her face as red as could be, she _so_ very dearly wanted to hide in that blanket right about now. To be called out like this, when she had spent so long thinking he had simply never noticed? "_Naofumi_. I'm… sorry if I've caused you any trouble with my silly little… crush."

He shook his head. "No need to go saying sorry. If anything, I've appreciated it. It… proves to me that you care a lot about me and my wellbeing."

"...O-Of course. Um." Raphtalia wrung her hands together beneath the blanket, doing her best to keep them out of his view. "So if you've known and you've never mentioned anything until now, then… d-does that mean…?"

_That there's someone else_, is what she was afraid of hearing. And somehow, he seemed to know what she feared as well. "No."

"...No?"

"No." A deep sigh, as he suddenly leaned back against the bench they were seated upon — he suddenly looked _very_ tired. "I've been thinking, though."

"Oh?" Her interest piqued, Raphtalia leaned into him somewhat. Surely he wouldn't mind… "About what?"

"...I don't think I'll get to go back home after all. To my world."

Raphtalia's expression changed, from one of curiosity to concern. "Why not?"

"The _waves_. The waves keep going on and on, one after the other… and until they're completely over, I don't get to go back. And… at this point?" He abruptly turned to face her with those piercing green eyes of his, a weak smile upon his face. "...I'm not sure I _want_ to go back."

Ordinarily, she'd be overjoyed at the sound of that — Naofumi staying, _in her world_. But… all of this seemed _very_ out of character for him. "What do you mean?"

"I've been away for so long now, I… don't know if anything would even be left for me if I went back. Whatever I had before coming here is basically gone, and for all I know, time passes differently between the worlds. If I go back, maybe only an hour has passed. Or maybe _years_. I'm just… not sure if I'd even have a life to go back to anymore, so maybe…"

_So maybe you'd rather just live here instead. _"What about your own family, though? Your parents?"

"It's hard to say. I definitely didn't have a _hard_ life with them, but." Another laugh and shake of the head, as he fixed his gaze upon burning logs before him. "It's so strange. It's… harder and harder for me to remember their faces, or what they even _sound_ like anymore. And I feel like I should be upset by that, but I'm… not? I… almost feel guilty over it, but even that seems hard to me."

"Naofumi…"

"Sorry." His grip upon Raphtalia's waist loosened, one hand dropping to a spot on the bench as he gestured with the other off to the side. As if that would somehow carry his point across better than his sudden stumbling. "I'm… not very good at talking about these things. I never have been, especially… not after—"

"Naofumi, you're freezing."

"What?" Snapped out of his own thoughts, he glanced down to only then notice that Raphtalia's hand was upon his own. "What are you…?"

"Goodness, when you talked about being 'cold', I always thought you meant emotionally and not literally. Let me help."

He had to do his very best to fight back a grimace — something about physical contact like this still left him feeling mildly uncomfortable. "Raphtalia, you... don't have to do that."

"No, but I _want_ to." Bathed in the light of the fire, her face softened somewhat as she gave his hand a gentle squeeze. "I… hope you don't mind."

"It's…" _Just bite the bullet, dumbass. She cares about you. _"It's fine."

"Good. I'm… I'm glad. I… worry about you, from time to time. Things must have been painful, if you acted the way you did when we first met."

"I-I, um…" He could feel his composure begin to break somewhat, and somehow that seemed… completely fine to him. "You still remember that, do you?"

"How could I not? You were the beginning of my new life. You seemed so angry and abrasive at first, so terribly hateful towards everyone and everything, and it scared me a bit. But, after you started to take care of me, I began to see what kind of person you truly were." She smiled gently, glancing up in his direction with a look of concern. "...Naofumi, you're shaking."

"I am?" A quick check revealed that, just as she described, his arm was slightly trembling. He was, perhaps, more bothered by the fact that it was simply _happening_ with no apparent cause. "...sorry, I'm not… completely sure why."

She had her suspicions, however. "It's because I'm a woman… isn't it? Even after all this time, you… still feel uneasy around me, don't you?"

"N-No, it's… it's not you, it's…" Naofumi groaned in frustration, shutting his eyes tight. "I don't know how to explain it."

"I think I do, though." Her ears flattening somewhat, she had already glanced away to stare at the fire as well, and her tail had hung limply for a number of minutes now. Somehow simply taking that first proverbial step and being this close to him had managed to ease her nerves, and her focus now was upon him and whatever it was that ailed him. "You let your guard down around her, and it… hurt you badly, in the end. And now you're afraid to do it again."

_Ah._ So that was it, then. That long, lingering feeling that had been bothering him since the moment he had begun to pick up on how Raphtalia felt, that same feeling that continually fed into his rampant anxieties and self doubts, of how that same scenario will simply happen again. And again. And _again_. To hear it actually put into words was to acknowledge it, to take on and accept the tangled mess of woes that had been thrust upon him the moment Myne had twisted the knife.

The _Shield Hero_ was a chosen warrior, one of four, who had been prophesied to put a stop to the waves of destruction, and to save the world. The _Shield Hero_ was a gruff and coarse persona, one that had been put on out of necessity when false accusations had been hurled at him. After all, no one wants to dare mess with someone of that nature when they also have a legendary weapon in hand, as well as being nigh-untouchable on account of their role in the waves.

But… that was the Shield Hero. And beneath all of that was simply _Naofumi Iwatani_. And Naofumi had been hurt badly upon arriving in Melromarc.

He was _still_ hurting, if he was being completely honest with himself.

"Naofumi?"

Blinking, he turned to look towards the source. "...Raphtalia?"

"You were staring off for a bit there. Are you alright?"

There were any number of ways in which he could respond. Ways in which he _should_ respond, ways in which he _wanted so very badly _to respond, and all of which simply boiled down to being half-hearted lies. And… this was Raphtalia. She had been with him through thick and thin, stalwart in her dedication to him and never wavering in her trust, even going so far as to purposely have a slave curse seal reapplied to herself when he first thought he was going to lose her.

He could hear the voices in his head practically arguing by now, but one was a clarion call above all others.

_Trust in her. Have faith._

And he agreed. "...no, I'm not. I haven't been alright in a while now. I feel like I'm constantly being watched, and that anyone and everyone I talk or interact with is going to turn their backs on me in the end… including you."

"Naofumi, I—"

"I _know_. I know it's ridiculous. I know it's irrational as hell. But I just… can't help it. The feeling is there, the feeling is _always_ there. I trust you, Raphtalia, I _really do_, but… I can't shake the paranoia. I've tried so hard, and I just _can't_." Clearly exasperated, he instead stared intently at the fire before him. There was a tight, squeezing sensation upon the back of his hand that lay near his companion. "The moment all that shit with Bitch started, I felt like I had to start living another life, and I… Raphtalia, I struggle to even _remember_ what I used to be like sometimes, what I was _actually_ like before everything went so wrong. I'm… I'm _scared_. I'm scared I'm never going to get over this, that I'm never going to get better."

It was perhaps the first time in the many months since she had first met him in which he had well and truly dropped the wall he kept around himself. It spoke volumes as to how much he _actually_ believed in her, to willingly do such a thing after enduring the trauma he had, and beneath that rough, outer exterior… he looked so terribly vulnerable. It broke her heart in ways she didn't know were possible. "Naofumi… let me help you."

"Raphtalia, I… I don't—"

"_Please. _I can't bear to see you like this." In much the same way as he had done to her, she gingerly placed an arm around his waist, giving him a light hug as her own hand tightly clasped around his. "I know the real 'you' is still in there. I see him again and again, each and every day, in every moment in which you go out of your way to help someone else. I _know_ he's in there… and I want to see him even more. So… please. Let me help show the real 'you' that there are people in this world who _do_ love you."

He managed a weak laugh, lowering his head a bit. "I'm… not sure I'm all that worthy of something like that. The _things_ I've said and done…"

"You do it because you care."

"I'm… not all there in the head, Raphtalia. I'm not the easiest person to get along with."

Shaking her head, she let go of his hand if only to place hers upon his chin, turning him to face her. "I don't care about that. I care about _you. _Come what may, I _want_ to be there for you, Naofumi. No matter what happens, I'm _not_ leaving your side. I am your sword, and… if you'll have me, I'd… l-like to be more than that."

_So, that's it then. It's all out in the open._ With a sigh, Naofumi gave his answer the best way he knew how — hesitantly, gently, he took Raphtalia's hand upon his face and brought it into his own, his fingers intertwining with hers as he allowed both their hands to slowly drift back down to their sides.

The next few minutes passed in relative silence, even as she began to lean against him, her tail _quite happily_ wagging at the latest development. "...Naofumi?"

"Hm?"

"What about…?"

"We say nothing to Filo. She finds out when she finds out, and _then_ we'll explain it."

"R-Right…"

As if by cue, a certain filolial suddenly sat upright, staring at the pair through bleary eyes. "Master and Onee-chan are up early today. What's for breakfast?"

Leaning back in the bench just enough to crane his head backwards, Naofumi shot her a look. "The inn said they were providing breakfast to go with our boarding. How about we go see what they've got planned?"

"Yay!" With nary another word, she had already bolted out of bed and out the door, running down the halls and leaving Naofumi and Raphtalia to simply watch her as she disappeared down the stairs.

The demihuman frowned a bit, giving his hand a gentle squeeze. "I don't know where she gets all that energy. I… guess we should chase after her and get some breakfast ourselves, hm?"

"Might as well. We've got a long day ahead of us, with plenty of traveling." Hopping to his feet, the Shield Hero briefly stretched before holding a hand out to her. "C'mon. Can't let her eat _everything_, right?"

"Right." To that, Raphtalia happily took his hand, letting him to pull her to her feet whilst she quickly locked her fingers around his, and as she lead him down the hallway to their meal below, he allowed himself a luxury he hadn't gotten to enjoy _nearly_ as much.

He felt himself smile.


End file.
